Free Web NovelChapter 54: First Time Witness
Wind stirs through the pines overhead, carrying the scent of damp earth between us. Ezra doesn’t look down at the contract, just stands there staring at me, breathing hard enough that I can see his chest rising beneath his shirt.
The sound is wrong. Ezra is controlled. Ezra is measured. Ezra is the man who could probably negotiate a hostage situation while being actively set on fire. Seeing him this close to the edge makes something uncomfortable twist beneath my ribs. It doesn’t stop me being furious.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
His jaw flexes. "A lot of things. Be specific."
"Don’t," I point toward the contract. "Do not get sarcastic with me right now."
His laugh is short and humourless. "Right now?"
"Ezra."
"What do you want me to say, Frankie?"
I through my hands out to my sides. "I want you to explain why you hid a clause in a contract that basically says you lot get to make decisions for me."
His nostrils flare. "I knew you’d leave."
All I can do is stare at him. "No way you could’ve known that."
"Yet you keep leaving," His voice is rough now. Frayed. "You left your flat. You left the daycare. You left us, climbed off a fucking balcony and disappeared across the country."
My irritation wavers, only slightly. "You lied to me."
"We did."
"You hid what I was."
"We did."
"You hid who I was."
His expression tightens. "We did."
The admission steals some of my momentum, always does when they refuse to defend themselves.
I fold my arms tightly across my chest. "Ever considered maybe I had reason to leave?"
"Yes." He answers without hesitation.
Somewhere deeper among the trees a bird calls, then silence settles again. Ezra drags a hand through his hair and turns away briefly before looking back at me.
"I know why you left," His voice has dropped lower. "What you don’t understand is, I don’t give a shit. You should have come to me."
My heart kicks hard against my ribs as something shifts beneath the anger. Ezra isn’t looking at me the way he usually does, he looks exhausted.
"We couldn’t find you," His gaze drops briefly to the ground. "Every time my phone rang I thought somebody was calling to tell me they’d found your body."
My breath catches.
"Ezra..."
"You think I’m joking?" His laugh sounds broken.
The anger I’ve been carrying all the way from Vaela’s office feels heavier. More complicated. His eyes lock onto mine.
"Then yesterday happened." He breathes.
Heat creeps up my neck at the memory of us. Something did change, as soon as we lay on that bed together.
"I felt it," His voice drops almost to a whisper. "For the first time actually felt the bond between us, it’s– life changing. And now you think you’re leaving again."
I open my mouth, and close it. Part of me wants to deny it, to tell him he’s being ridiculous. That’s a lie, I know exactly why he’s scared, a part of me is altered forever, connected to him.
Ezra takes a step closer. "I don’t need control over you, Frankie," The words are quiet. "I need you alive."
Trees and branches and leaves shrink around us. Whispering secrets overhead. Standing there with his control hanging by a thread, I realise this was never about winning an argument.
It’s about fear. Real fear. The kind that leaves scars. The kind neither of us has figured out how to survive yet.
The frustration that’s been simmering beneath my skin since he gave me that contract finally boils over. Whatever sympathy his confession had stirred doesn’t erase the paper currently lying on the forest floor between us. It doesn’t erase the fact that everyone keeps deciding things for me before I’ve even had a chance to open my mouth.
My eyes sting. My throat burns. The argument rises again before I can stop it.
"I am not trying to leave you." My voice echoes through the trees.
Ezra drags both hands through his hair. "Stop fucking acting like it." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
"I’m trying to learn," I plead. "To do that I need to find myself, and the family I’ve just found again can help."
"We’re your family." He growls.
The words are true. But they’re fucking unfair, because two things can exist at the same time.
"I know that."
"Do you?" His control is slipping now. I can hear it. See it. "Because from where I’m standing, every solution you come up with ends with you living somewhere else."
I throw my hands into the air. "For a little while, Jesus."
"You don’t know that." He’s battling everything to keep his voice controlled.
"Neither do you."
"You think I can just watch you disappear into another pack after what we experienced?" His voice cracks.
Tears blur my vision. Rain isn’t falling this time, there’s nothing to hide behind. "I’m trying to become someone who can survive this," The words come out broken. "If any of what Vaela says is true, then I need to understand what I am."
"We can teach you." He’s pleading now.
"No, you can’t," The answer’s out before I can soften it. "You’re still holding back truths."
The silence that follows is awful. I swipe angrily at my eyes.
"Remember what I told you?"
His jaw tightens. "Frankie—"
"No." My voice shakes. "I told you if you lied to me again I’d be gone."
His face closes off. "This isn’t the same thing. It was to protect you."
"There it is," I laugh, the tears are flowing freely now. "There’s always a reason. Always an explanation. Always a secret. Always somebody deciding what’s best for me."
His breathing turns dangerously harsh.
"I’m not trying to get away from you," I wipe my face again. "I’m trying to become somebody who deserves to stand beside you."
Pain, anger, devastation, all tangled together, all laid bare on his face. "You already do." The words are a growl.
He takes a step backward.
Then another.
One second he’s standing in front of me, chest heaving, eyes bright with anger and fear and frustration, and the next the lines of him change. A ripple moves through him, a fault line splitting open beneath the surface. Every muscle in his body locks in sync, I flinch back. His hands curl into fists at his sides. The tendons in his neck stand out. His head drops forward as though he’s fighting against something enormous.
"Ezra..."
The sound that answers me doesn’t belong to a man. It rips out of him low and rough, vibrating through the trees around us.
I think he’s in pain. Until it really begins.
The first crack is so loud I hear it before I understand what I’m seeing. His back bows violently. Another crack follows. Then another. Then dozens more. The sounds echo through the forest, branches snapping beneath a storm. His entire body reshapes itself in front of me. Muscles bunch and roll beneath his skin. His shoulders broaden impossibly. The seams of his shirt strain until fabric tears apart with sharp ripping sounds.
I should look away. I can’t. Horror and fascination pin me in place.
His arms lengthen as bones shift beneath skin. His hands distort, fingers stretching before folding inward. His legs buckle, knees bending wrong before reforming. Every movement is accompanied by a chorus of wet grinding noises that make my stomach lurch. No living thing should survive what I’m watching.
Yet, he isn’t dying, he’s becoming.
Dark fur erupts across his skin in waves. His face changes, features pushing forward, jaw lengthening, teeth emerging in flashes of white. The entire process is brutal. Violent. Terrifying.
Beautiful.
Somewhere beneath the horror, the impossible reality of it, there is something breathtakingly natural about what I’m seeing. Watching a river carve through stone. Witnessing lightning strike. Ancient enough human language was never meant to describe it.
Standing where Ezra had been is a wolf.
Not regular wolf-sized. Nothing close.
The creature before me is enormous. His shoulders reaches my ear. Thick black fur gleams between shafts of sunlight filtering through the trees. Every line of him radiates strength, predatory grace, power so immense my instincts don’t know whether to flee or kneel.
Only his eyes remain unchanged. Ezra’s eyes.
Neither of us moves. Tears continue sliding down my face as I stare at him. He stares back. Breathing. Waiting. Watching me with a patience that feels achingly familiar.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I step closer.
His ears flick.
Another step.
Then another.
Close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough that fear should be overwhelming me. All I feel is wonder as my hand lifts. The moment my fingers disappear into the thick fur at his neck, a shiver runs through me. He’s real.
The wolf closes his eyes. Still Ezra.
"I’m sorry," I whisper.
His massive head lowers, pressing briefly against my shoulder with surprising gentleness. As he pulls away the connection breaks. With one final look he turns and launches into the trees.
The power behind the movement is astonishing. One leap carries him several metres. Another and he’s already disappearing between the pines. Dark fur vanishes into shadow. Branches sway. Leaves tremble.
Then the forest swallows him whole.
I remain standing exactly where he left me, hand still raised, heart aching as I stare at the empty space between the trees and wonder how it’s possible for someone to leave and yet somehow take the entire world with them.
